When Spring?

S
Each year there is a day when I notice the first sign of spring.  For me it is not what I see, but a feel in the air.

It must be related to temperature, because a cold day (like yesterday) was definitely not Spring.  Today was more like it - even though there was a frost this morning.

We're working hard on the vege garden.  By chance I placed it just below the little 'plateau' that the house and farmyard sits on - and right above where the rain that falls on that plateau seems to go.

This first photo shows the vege garden - with the very wet area in the foreground and to the right.  With the amount of rain we've been having, it's just as well that we created the raised beds.  They are staying acceptably dry - while water is lying in the trenches between.

Over behind me, Sam and Finnbar are putting in some drainage to allow excess water collecting in the trenches to flow away quickly.  Most of the time we've been at Moora the problem has been quite the opposite - things have been so dry.

You can see just how wet things are at present in the next photo.  Here I've just built a very handsome trellis structure over some snow peas.  When I came to do my garden diary tonight I discovered that the variety I planted beneath my trellis (Sugar Ann) is in fact a drawf variety!

Perhaps I'll just plant a 3rd row of climbing peas up the middle.

In the background of this second photo is my potato block.  I've now planted 10 rows of potatoes - 11 varieties in all.  I'm really looking forward to harvesting them.  Fresh new potatoes are about as good as it gets.

I think it's a bit early, but we've got asparagus coming through.  It doesn't look that great yet, but tastes absolutely spectacular.  When I do the picking, I usually eat at least one raw.  So sweet and delicious.

My dear old Mum was nearly perfect (at least in my eyes) - with only one or two exceptions.  One of them was the way she served asparagus - boiled to within a inch of disintegration.  What a terrible thing to do to the queen of vege patch!  My favourite way is to fry just picked spears in butter for a couple of minutes and add cracked black pepper just before serving.

S